Tuesday, January 23, 2007

For some time now, certain deluded Russians have labored under the vodka-and- gas-fume-induced hallucination that Europe liked Russia better than the United States, and that the pair would team up to crush evil America. Not that it was ever close to being true, but recent Russian actions have made it impossible for any but the most truly crazed Russophile maniacs to cling to even the illusion.

The Moscow Times reports on how Europe, led by the able (and female!) German Chancellor, is galvanizing for the confrontation:

Angela Merkel has a very different attitude to Russia from the last three or four German chancellors, perhaps because she grew up in East Germany, under Russian control. She's not anti-Russian (she speaks the language fluently), but she doesn't think that they deserve special treatment. So when Russia suddenly cut of the flow of oil to Germany and several other European Union countries on Jan. 8 because of a dispute with Belarus, she did not waste time on tact.

"It's unacceptable," she said, "when there are no consultations on such actions. That always destroys trust." It was the harshest thing that any German chancellor has said to any Russian leader since the collapse of the Soviet Union -- and she said it, moreover, in her capacity as the current president of the European Union, a post that she had assumed just days before. Something is going on here.

The dead of winter is the ideal time for an energy supplier to have a confrontation with an energy-poor customer in a cold climate, and this is the second January in a row that Russia has pulled the plug on a neighbor that was resisting hefty increases in the price it paid for Russian gas and oil. Last year it was Ukraine; this year it's Belarus. In each case, Moscow brought them to heel by turning off the taps -- but that also cut off its EU customers farther west, since the pipelines pass through Belarus and Ukraine en route to the rest of Europe. The EU was not amused.

"We are paying for these energy resources and are never late in our payments," EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs saidin mid-January. "We have a right to insist that you never disrupt supply." But behind Piebalgs's stern insistence that "the disruption to oil supplies we have seen in the last few days must never, never happen again" was the knowledge that it might well happen again. The Russian negotiating style is too muscular for the EU's taste, and what happens to Ukraine or Belarus today might happen to other Russian customers tomorrow.

When Moscow told Minsk that the price of gas was going up from $47 to $105 per thousand cubic meters on Jan. 1 and that it was imposing a "customs duty" of $180 per ton on the oil Belarus buys from Russia, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko's first response was defiance: "We will live in dug-outs, but we will not surrender to blackmail."

Belarus has no energy resources of its own, and Lukashenko's popular support among poorer Belarussians depends entirely on the fact that he has preserved the old Soviet system and the guaranteed minimum living standard that it provided. His support would probably not survive a prolonged bout of hardship as a result of a confrontation with Russia over energy prices, so he took a different tack.

Just after the new year, Lukashenko accepted the Russian demands on oil and gas prices -- but then he tried to claw the money back by imposing a $45 per ton "transit fee" on all the oil passing through Belarussian pipelines to the EU. What's more, knowing that he could never force Moscow to pay up, Lukashenko started collecting the fee in kind by diverting oil from the pipeline that crosses Belarussian territory on its way to the EU. So Moscow shut the pipeline down.

Fair enough, in the bandit world of post-Soviet capitalism -- and it brought Lukashenko sharply to heel. He gave in completely, and since he has now also been forced to sell 50 percent control of Belarus' pipelines to Russia he will never pose this problem again. But farther west, the EU is quietly re-examining its energy calculations as the lesson sinks in that it is unwise to be too dependent on energy supplies from post-Soviet Russia. (The EU imports one quarter of its oil and 42 percent of its gas from Russia.)

As Piebalgs put it: "If there's disruption of supply, it's not retaliation that's required but appropriate action. ... You simply conclude that this partner is not worth your trust and you don't make any more contracts." There will actually be lots more contracts, because nobody can switch the bulk of their energy purchases overnight, but the trend line in EU purchases of Russian energy is likely to be down.

Chancellor Merkel is already saying that Germany should reconsider its plan to phase out nuclear power by 2020, although she cannot do so under the terms of the current coalition agreement with the Social Democrats. More importantly for the near future, she is urging private industry to build a network of gas pipelines across the EU that is connected to liquefied natural gas ports in Germany and elsewhere. That would give the EU, and especially the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, an alternative to heavy dependence on Russian energy.

Russia doesn't care. In the long run, it can probably sell almost all of its exportable oil and gas to China and other East Asian customers (though the pipelines mostly have yet to be built). But a major strategic shift is getting under way: The EU no longer assumes that Russia is a reliable partner or even a friend.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports on the latest development in the Cold War II arms race as Russia alienates and provokes not only Europe but also the U.S.:

A top Russian general on Monday criticised a U.S. decision to place an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic as a threat to Moscow, news agencies reported. "Our analysis shows that the placing of a radio locating station in the Czech Republic and anti-missile equipment in Poland is a real threat to us," Lieutenant-General Vladimir Popovkin, commander of Russia's space forces, said. A U.S. State Department spokesman said on Sunday that Poland and the Czech Republic had agreed to start detailed discussions with Washington on hosting anti-missile defences.

The United States is investing around $10 billion (5 billion pounds) a year in developing the missile shield system, which combines a long-range radar system with rockets to shoot down hostile missiles in space. "It's very doubtful that elements of the national U.S. missile defence system in eastern Europe were aimed at Iranian missiles, as has been stated," Popovkin said.

Russia has repeatedly opposed the project, brushing aside U.S. assurances that the system is not aimed at Moscow. Last year Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov attacked the missile shield as an attempt to change the strategic balance between Russia and the West.

Russia will undoubtedly go on blaming "foriegn russophobes" for a baseless conspiracy against Russia, just as the USSR did right up until the time it was no more. Never once will Russians stop and think that maybe, just maybe, they might be heading down the wrong path (again).

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As lightning to the children easedWith explanation kind,The truth must dazzle graduallyOr every man be blind.

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From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were, I have not seenAs others saw, I could not bringMy passions from the common spring.From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow, I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone,And all I loved, I loved alone.Then in my childhood, in the dawnOf a most stormy life was drawnFrom every depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still:From the torrent, and the fountain,From the red cliff of the mountain,From the sun that 'round me rolledIn its autumn tint of gold;From the lightning in the sky,As it passed me, flying by,From the thunder, and the storm,And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view.

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Girl Power: Ginger Rogers could do everything Fred Astaire could do . . . backwards, and in high heels.

Pioneer Power: Though he painted more than 1,000 works of art in his lifetime, Vincent Van Gogh sold only two.

Mark Twain: "It's a man with very little imagination who can only spell a word one way."

Socrates: "To be is to do." Sartre: "To do is to be." Sinatra: "Do be do be do."

Girl Power: On May 14, 2006, a perfect game was pitched in the Oakfield, New York Little League. Perfect as in 18 consecutive strikeouts. The pitcher's name? Katie Brownell. She's the only female player in the league.

Girl Power: On April 13, 2007, the Independent reported that women will soon be able to produce sperm cells from their bone marrow, making men obsolete.